Socality is excited to partner with Perspectives Apparel on creating an exclusive jacket for Socality that will be available at Socality PDX. We sat down with the social entrepreneurs and talked about making a difference!

Perspectives and Socality Jacket collaboration.

Q. Tell us how you began Perspectives Apparel?

A. Perspectives began with a desire to see the artwork that we created on the backs of people around the world. A desire to help others was always in our minds but we believed we needed to first have money in order to be able to help other people. I realized my foolishness when I was traveling in Nicaragua my sophomore year of college. I stayed at an organization called Villa Esperanza, where a group of people take girls out of the second largest dump in the world. I imagined the desperation and abandonment I would feel if my parents, struggling to survive, considered selling me into prostitution for first access to the newest load of garbage.

In 2008, Gloria and her husband Wilbert partnered with Forward Edge International to establish Villa Esperanza, a place where young girls from La Chureca can recast their futures. The Villa currently consists of four homes and each can house up to eight girls and one house mom. The girls are given their first bed with clean sheets, clothes, nutritious food and loving caretakers. School suddenly becomes an option, and with it, hope for a better future. Villa Esperanza goes further, by offering life-skills and social skills training, psychological evaluation and counseling, and medical care. Here the children receive personal care in a family environment. The Villa staff also continues to serve the girls’ families back in the dump.

The power of this incredible story revealed to me that there must be hundreds of organizations out there doing amazing things to restore justice and show the love that is Christ. We began Perspectives to share these stories with the hope that others would fall in love with what was being done by these organizations and provide the resources that they had to get involved.

This video explains a little bit more in depth about how we began |

Q. What exactly is your mission and how do you help?

A. Perspectives is a lifestyle-fashion forward brand bringing true hope by connecting people to people and resources to resources. We partner with non-profits around the world, tell their story in unique ways, and provide opportunities for individuals to get involved with the talents and resources that they have. We give a percentage of what we make directly back to the organizations but just as importantly strive to change the perspectives our consumers have on justice, community, relationships, business, and Jesus.

Our goal is to attract others with the perfection we strive to have in our branding, allow them to discover the deeper social good ties they can have within our brand through the stories we narrate, and ultimately further the kingdom of Christ through our simple lifestyle choices to have faith, create opportunity, and give back.

Q. Can you share a personal story of how Perspectives has impacted you?

A. Perspectives . . . I believe . . . as odd as this may sound, is me living out what I feel God has placed on my heart to try and grasp through His lens while here on earth. Because of this, Perspectives continues to develop, transform, and deepen as I am impacted more and more by these four things:

Justice: Not simply sitting back in my comfortable life and throwing money at an organization but stepping outside of what is easy, and inconveniencing myself for the sake of someone who needs true justice. Jesus came to a broken, messed up, sinful world and lived amongst all of it in relationship with us. I believe justice is best lived out in relationship and by giving up to God what he has already given us to be used for His good in the restoration of a world He wants to redeem.

Relationship: We are meant to be in Godly community. We crave it. I crave it. The relationships and communities that continue to be formed in this world continue to show me that this is a necessity for all.

The Body of Christ: I think what Jesus meant by the whole “arm and a leg all having different tasks but are needed in the body” is the same thing Perspectives and Socality are doing. We are taking an arm in Portland, OR and trying to connect it with a foot over in Nicaragua. Everyone has different abilities and gifts. When we bring those before the Lord, He uses us, brings us together, and works through it all for His purpose.

God’s Love: I believe that is is often easy to show the love of God, but incredibly harder to show the love that is God. I want our company to continue to push me to point the love that is expressed in what we do to Christ. By “being nice” and hoping someone is transformed by Jesus is great, and absolutely possible, but if we are not pointing to Him in what we do . . . I think we are missing something.

I think about those four things each day. Imperfectly . . . yes, but they are what continue to transform and mold as we learn more each day.

Brothers and founders, Devon DeJardin and Cody DeJardin.

Q. What is your long term goal?

A. Our long term goal is to be in numerous retail stores as we continue to deepen our relationships with non-profits, businesses, and individuals across the world. We believe that by connecting people to people and resources to resources opportunities will come. With enough opportunities we can impact the world together.

We want to continue to expand our social giveback opportunities and think of new ways to connect people to the non-profits we work with. We want to continue to create not just a brand, but an art piece that continues to allow our creative department to showcase ways to lead others to think about harder topics while pointing them to the love that is Christ.

Q. Why are you excited about Socality and what is happening within this?

A. We are excited about our partnership with Socality because our hearts are almost identical in our desire to see people come together as the body of Christ and use the resources they have already been given for good.

We believe that the people attending Socality Live in Portland innately have a desire to see peace and true justice brought to this world. We hope that through the course of that weekend we will all begin to understand to a fuller extent the abilities and gifts we all have, and how to use them for the Kingdom of God.